ABSTRACT
The current methods to identify the bridge damage depend on time consuming visual inspection and/or based on the data collected from a sensor based monitoring making the evaluation process very expensive. To demonstrate the new damage identification process, finite element models using LS-Dyna finite element program followed by the Inverse Dynamics Optimization Algorithm analyses are performed. The algorithm used to calculate the force history before and after the bridge damage using the data collected from a strain transducer. The damage identification is dependent on the changes in force history resulting from the change in bridge stiffness due to the damage. The proposed process of identifying the bridge damage is divided into two stages: in the first stage, two finite element models are used to simulate the bridge displacement due to quarter car model representing healthy and damage bridges. In the second stage, the algorithm was used to calculate the damage location.
